Saudi Lashings

There has been much press lately on a woman in Saudi Arabia, the victim of gang rape by seven men, who was then sentenced to 200 lashes. Universally, the suggestion is that this is an example of Saudi discrimination against women. The Chicago Sun-Times editorializes that it is “like something out of the Dark Ages.” A correspondent writes to the National Post, “It is just another reminder of how women are treated in parts of the Muslim world and the indifference to their plight shown by so many feminists in the West.”

There is certainly room to condemn the sentence as too harsh; and the doubling of the woman’s sentence for talking to the media does not seem proper. But the one thing that is certain is this: it is not a case of discrimination against women. Conversely, the reporting of the story in the West is a case of discrimination against men.

For all news reports focus on the woman. But the fact is that the girl’s boyfriend was also in the car, also raped, and also received the very same initial sentence, of ninety lashes. If it was unjust in the case of the woman, it must have been equally unjust in the case of the man. Nobody cares. By objecting only to the woman’s sentence, the media are saying that what happens to men does not matter.

The man and woman who were raped were guilty of a crime in Saudi law: she was married, and yet was meeting another man alone, in his car.

Perhaps this should not be a crime; but that is a different matter. It has nothing to do with discrimination—unless the real issue here is discrimination against women having sex, not against women.